In a blog post a couple of weeks ago, when I told you about Miss Terry doing some painting at our house, I mentioned that we still had a couple of other home improvement projects we wanted to get done. One of them was insulating our garage.

It’s a huge 1100 square foot metal building attached to our house, and while we can (and do) cram a lot of stuff in it, during the summertime it is too hot to do anything at all out there because except for some fiber foam insulation panels in the ceiling, the rest of it is just bare metal. On the other hand, when we get cold spells, it’s too chilly out there. Neither extreme is helpful when you’re throwing darts or doing anything else.

So yesterday we had a company called Flagler Foam come and spray foam the walls and ceiling of the garage. We first learned about spray foaming when we were converting our MCI bus many years ago. It was a popular method of insulating bus conversions, and though we didn’t go that route with our bus, there were times we wished we had.

Terry and I, with the help of our friend Jim Lewis, spent two days emptying out the garage in preparation for the project. Did I mention we had a lot of stuff crammed in there? And except for the refrigerator and a big worktable, it all had to be moved. Terry’s loom room is filled with stuff from the garage, we laid the seats down in the back of the Explorer and filled it, as well as the back of the van, and more stuff got piled inside my boat. You know that really sore back I mentioned a couple of days ago? It sure didn’t help getting everything moved, but it had to be done. So we did it.

A two-man crew arrived at our house about 9:30 yesterday morning and set to work. They coverd the refrigerator, worktable, workbench, and urinal (What? Your garage doesn’t have a urinal?) with plastic sheeting, set up a rolling scaffold, and then started spraying. It was amazing to watch the process. The foam comes out in just a light layer that looks like paint.

And then it starts to expand, and expands some more, and then expands even more. That’s a lot of foam!

It took them several hours to do the spraying, covering everything except a short section of wall that is connected to the side of the house and already covered with plywood over fiberglass insulation. Then they trimmed everything to give us an even surface that we can then cover with sheetrock or plywood, or whatever. I think we’ll just leave the ceiling like it is for now.

According to the folks at Flagler Foam, their product gives us an R-14 insulation factor, so I think that’s going to make quite a difference. I also noticed a difference in sound inside the garage with the door closed right away. Before, we could hear cars two blocks away, and now we can’t hear them as they pass right by outside. The light-colored foam also reflects more light than the gray metal walls did, making it lighter inside the garage. We are very pleased with the job Flagler Foam did for us.

They said to let things set for about 24 hours before we started filling the garage back up, to give the foam plenty of time to cure. I did put my boat back in, as well as our two Old Town kayaks.

We still have one more project in the works; getting new carpeting installed in the living room, bedrooms, and Terry’s sewing room, as well as new floor covering for the kitchen, guest bathroom, and hallway. Everything is on order, and they tell us that they hope to be able to complete the installation by March 1st. I’m sure that by the time they’re finished we will think of something else that needs done.

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Thought For The Day – I bought a box of Girl Scout Thin Mints and ate them and didn’t get thinner. I don’t think they work.

5 Responses to “A Foamy Friday”

One of our model railroad friends, while building a new house, put a urinal in the bathroom near his railroad at his wife’s insistence. Guess she got tired of cleaning up after the mostly male operating crew at their previous house.

I’m jealous, that is some garage!
I was at the Yuma swap meet last weekend & saw a soda machine for sale. That’s what a garage that has it’s own urinal can really use! A coin operated beverage dispenser 🙂

Wow. Huge job. But I understand putting all that stuff somewhere. Our dining room is FULL of everything that goes in my trailer, since I did not get that project far enough along before winter to return it all.

wow! Nice shop. There was a garage attached to a double wide trailer that was on our property when we bought it 14 months ago. We didn’t want the trailer so the previous owner sold it and had it removed. (Her mother had been living in it). We built large double doors where the garage was open in the front and the wall on the side that had been attached to the trailer. It has a nice size enclosed tool room in it but no urial. Dang it. We were gypped. Oh…… I get it. A woman lived in the house, a woman in the double wide. Never mind.